abdullahsuwailim

Abdullah Suwailim

What a night to remember. It was the night that turned that young pilot
into a fighter. A night Abdullah never anticipated.

Lieutenant Abdullah Suwailim was a young pilot stationed on the Air
Base that night. He was passing the time playing cards and thinking of
his friends who were enjoying their weekend. The idea of going to war never
crossed his mind. He did not expect that that night would change him from
a pilot to a fighter.

Around 11 P.M. things started moving in a direction Abdullah could not
make sense of. He was asked to call all the pilots of the base. A task
he did while wondering why, since the stands by crews were there. Then
he was ordered to wear his combat fatigue, which was uncomfortable in that
hot night. He was not ordered to board his plane. He just stayed in the
officers’ mess wondering what was going on.

Later on he was ordered to board his Mirage and be the last of the first
formation that would go to fight. He still did not think that he would
fly. He thought the first two planes would do the job. But this time he
turned his radio on to hear what was going. To his astonishment he realized
that there was a battle going on.

He was apprehensive. He did not get into battle before and was not psychologically
prepared for it. So he started to think of all the heroes in Kuwait history,
like the man this Air Base was named after. He kept telling himself that
he wanted to be one of those heroes and that he should not be a coward.

As he was ordered to take off he turned his weapons on and flew his
plane into that dark night to face his destiny. A hero’s death would be
much better than a coward’s life.

As he looked at the battleground from his cockpit there was a lot of
carnage. He had a hard time identifying his targets. The command tower
kept on asking him about his altitude in order to identify him. There were
many Iraqi troop-carrying helicopters. Some were empty returning back and
fully laden ones going to Kuwait. He chose to target the ones going to
Kuwait. But he had to choose the furthest ones from his colleagues in order
not to hurt them.

After identifying his targets Abdullah for the first time in his life
fired in wrath his air-to-air missiles and shot down two helicopters. Abdullah
has crossed the threshold and became a fighter.

As he has erased the fear of being a coward from his mind, Abdullah
became much calmer. He called the command tower reported his action and
requested to land for further deployment.

Later on Abdullah would take his plane to Ahmed Al-Jaber Air Base and
then to Saudi Arabia. Six months later Abdullah unleashed his wrath again.
He was one of Dessert Storm veteran fighters. A fearless fighter who inflicted
more damage than that night to the Iraqi aggressors.